10 Tips & Tricks to Win Your Fantasy Football League

avoid risk there's no reason there's no reason to go with the risky player the player that has some big he changed teams or he's got a big injury history or you know that like everybody in the first round is good everybody there is a good player has a chance to finish as you know near the number one in their position so if you bypass on a risky player

You are saying no to diabetes, is what I'm saying. Here's the thing. You could go gluten-free in the first round. Is that what I'm hearing? That's what I'm talking about. Bruce Arian said, no risk, no biscuit, no biscuit. I'm saying in the first round, maybe don't follow Bruce's advice. Here's my data to back me up. Let's look at those. But they'll just stepping up to the microphone again. Look at the last two years. I looked at the first round of the last two years. Set your timers. No, I'm only going two years, not seven years. So we're okay. Last year, who were the busts? Lev Bell was a bust.

Okay, obviously, biggest bust of the first round. He was dealing with a holdout. There was giant risk with him, but you took the risk and it failed. David Johnson, I don't think he was really a bus because he finishes the running back 10, but because it happened last year, everyone feels that way. But even him, he had a brand new team. He had a rookie quarterback. There was a lot of big variables there to David Johnson. Well, he was supposed to have Sam Bradford. Sure. Okay. That's not risky. Kareem Hunt, there was nothing you could do about.

Right, Kareem Hunt was great, and then something came out, his season was over, and, you know, that was a bust that you couldn't see beforehand. You had Leonard Fournett, who has a giant history of being injured, and then the only other bust in that first round was Odell Beckham. As far as where he finished, you could say, well, he was good until he got injured, whatever. We'll talk about that in a second. Go back a year prior.

You have David Johnson, nothing you could do about that, right? He got injured early in week one and was out. The other ones were, again, Odell Beckham, who has this history of being drafted in the first round and still dealing with injuries. And you had Jay Ajai, who was on a bad team. So much of his stats came in like three games. We brought that risk up that year, very similar to Derek Henry. So it's like, look at this here. Who are the risks? You've got Zeke. Maybe I'm not taking him at four.

Because there's just no reason to. You've got Lev Bell, changed teams, new everything, new offensive line, new scheme. Todd Gurley, who is still amazingly on some ADP lists in the first round. And O'Dell Beckham Jr., who, again, he has not only this history of injuries, but he has also changed teams, new quarterback. And these could be great.

All four of those guys, Zeke, Lev, Bell, Todd, Gurley, OBJ, they could be dominant this year. But I'm saying as a tip, like, why take the risk when there are other, there are other great options? I mean, Julio or Odell Beckham, you know, they're going right next to each other in drafts. That's why. But Julio carries risk, too. He carries the same. He is really. No, he's played basically 16 years and years. He has. I mean, he's been able to play through, but I'm just saying. I would argue he's probably the least risky. Yeah, he's, he's been.

Just look at his career finish. Let's circle back to Zeke. Because I brought this up the other day. This whole thought of like he should be the fourth, you know, we say, oh, he'll be the fourth of that group. I don't know if I buy that because it's the same decision for any owner. Like, ooh, Zeke is sneaking to the seventh pick. Well, guess what? The person at the seventh pick gets one first round draft pick. It doesn't matter whether Zeke snuck to you to give you a screaming value. Sounds like you're talking about my next tip. All right, we'll get to that.

Number five. But also my biggest takeaway from Jason is he will not be drafting Wilford Brimley in the first round. That's right. I don't like oatmeal. That's a deep cut. I like it. Thank you. That's what this show is all about. And my tip here is I just want to talk some game theory. I want to talk opportunity costs. That phrase does come up on this podcast from time to time. But when you take a player.

It doesn't just cost that draft pick. It also costs what you didn't select. And you don't need to get into the paralysis by analysis of this. I just, I want our listeners to start looking at fantasy football for what it is. It's a game. It's not just, oh, I watch football, so I take the best players. Like there's, there is an entire theory.

uh that can help give you an edge in this game that this game is all probability that's that's the game we are playing when you boil it down and it's like if once once the uh the simulation takes over and they're playing fantasy football they'll be able to do it because it's just running probability numbers so for example like andy was just saying if you take zeke at number seven what yours if maybe you're just staring down oh i got the value so that this has to happen

You also need to factor in, okay, well, if I don't, if I take Zee here, I don't have any more first-round picks. So I can't take Devante Adams here if I wanted to. He's not going to come back to me. And how do you have to protect that risk of Zique later in the draft? Exactly. So I'm just wanting people to, I'm not going to dive into like a big monologue here about going deep into that game theory. I just want people to start wrapping your head around.

It's more than just I pick a guy. Like there is, there is, I pick this guy means I don't get to do this. And this, I mean, this is a quarterback, early quarterback. That's the, that's the, the whole crux of the argument isn't that Pat Mahomes isn't going to be good. Pat Mahomes is going to be great. It's what are you giving up? And you're saying, look, consider the cost, right? Yes. Consider the cost. Sit down and consider. That's a good title. Yeah.

I like that Jason had these very convoluted titles. Mike didn't title his. It's just opportunity costs. Well. So whose are better, Andy? I want you to have to say that they are both equally not as good as mine. Technically, Jason titled his so his has to be better. Thank you, Mike. Good. Number four. Number four, the title for number four is Memories of Now.

Which is a famous, Brooks is nodding, Duke's Silver album. Ah. Memories of now. You should have gone with memory, just started belting out memories from cats. I do not know that, thankfully. You do. You know. You don't, you don't know memories. I.

I got an app on my phone that will send an alarm if any cat songs are played within a square block. He's allergic. And I run. Yeah, I'm allergic. I'm not a fan of the musical. But Memories is one of the most famous show tunes of all time. Then I probably have heard it, Mike. Are you satisfied? I don't want to hear it now. Here's the point with number four, because you don't know where I'm going yet.

The power of now is what I want to get into. And again, I'm not going, I don't have some huge monologue, but I want fantasy owners to remember something here. The best fantasy owners are the most active fantasy owners. And sometimes we underestimate the value of picking up a victory today versus building everything for the future weeks.

Okay. So this doesn't mean that you're not wise and you don't plan ahead and you're not smart in your league because there are ways that you can do that and we talk about them all season long. You know, we talk about you have a player that's already through their, hasn't had a buy week and you trade for a player that's already had their buy week. So you just picked up a week. Those are smart thoughts that you can have, plans that you can make for the future. Those are smart things to do. But there is a lot of value in the present week.

I love spending my fab dollars on players early in the season when I think that they're going to make a difference to my team right there, right now. Last year, need a tight end. $44 on George Kittle, done. No remorse. No disappointment. Maybe it doesn't work out. There was a huge chance for great despair on that one. You can always be wrong. But if you have the conviction that you need a player,

And they're sitting there. What I'm seeing is don't be paralyzed by going, boy, if I spend this money on a player I know will affect my team today, I'm not going to be able to spend it on a theoretical player that will be available in week seven. You might not have your team in a very good position in week. You know today you can get a player that makes a difference. I'm always trying to make trades in my leagues that benefit the upcoming week and the upcoming matchup.

Sometimes if you don't have a powerhouse team, if you have a powerhouse team, it's a little easier to set it and forget it, right? You're not micromanaging each and every player if you're running out last year. Mahomes, Gurley, Tyreek, back on, whatever. But a lot of the times you don't have a, you need to buy weeks. When we started this company, like a lot of startups have the same story, we were literally just trying to buy survival for another month, come up with a strategy to how do we get to the next month? That's what fantasies like a lot of the time. Can I win this week?

And then I'll figure out next week, next week. You make trades, you waiver wire pickups. Play for now a little bit. It's no good spending all your fab dollars in week 10 if you're already out of the playoffs, is my point. So consider the future, but play for now. That's my tip. I actually really like that. And it's good advice for Dynasty Leagues as well, where owners so often get so enamored with the future that they never are able to win.

the championship in any year that they're actually playing fantasy football, but they always look sweet down the line. And you kind of question yesterday when I said I made a dynasty trade with Hilton. Right. And it was like, what? It's a dynasty league. And luck might miss a couple games. Well, my thought process with that is I'm not going out there trying to give Hilton away. I'm trying to trade Hilton for what I believe is a great value in return right now. And yes, maybe it buys me three or four weeks. But.

It should be a good trade regardless. So I'm thinking in the now, but also in the future. I'm not selling. I'm not reacting, but I'm saying, well, if I got a great wide receiver back, if I could do a trade for juju, I don't have to deal with Andrew Luck. That's kind of the thought. And there is a strong emotional value to one win. Like winning a week in fantasy football, not just, I mean,

Your mood, I mean, which it horribly affects. I'm saying your emotion to how you feel about that league and moving forward in trying to keep yourself engaged. It's amazing how you can be sitting 3 and 0. Yeah, this is.

And then you lose your 3-1, which is still fantastic. The sky is falling in. But your team at 3-1 looks infinitely different to you than it did at 3-0. We've all made tilt trades. Oh, I was going to say chasing. I'm 0-2. I've got to do something. So there is a power to snatching a victory away on a Sunday where you weren't expecting to. Absolutely. Number three.

Number three, no clever title here, just something I like to say every single year because it is always true. You don't win the championship at the draft. Now, that's not to say the draft's not important. You set your foundation there. But I promise you, I used, the reason I always bring this up is I used to be this player a decade ago. I would draft well, I would get, I'd have a good team and I would.

get to the playoffs and lose, or I would be the first team out of the playoffs year after year after year. And the reason why I didn't really understand is because I put so much emphasis on the draft, which was great, and then kind of abandon it as it went along. And when I say it, I'm speaking of news. I'm speaking of the research and those type of things. That's why we go year round here so that, you know, as you continue through the season.

Don't forget about all the stuff that changes. Here are a list of some of the most owned players in championship leagues this past season. Nick Chubb was not great in the beginning. You could get him off of waivers. I believe, Mike, you held him, dropped them, had to pay for him off of waivers, right? Philip Lindsay, not a draft guy. Jalen Samuels was one of the most owned guys in championship leagues. Damien Williams, Derek Henry. These are players that...

were on the teams that won championships, and there's no way that those were guys coming out of the draft on all those rosters. This is a league. You brought it up, Mike. This is a game. It's game theory. And if you're going to cross the bubble from being a good team to the championship winning team, it's not what you do before the draft. It's what you do from weeks 1 through 16, 16.